I am sitting in seat 11A on United flight 4548 en route from Raleigh-Durham to Newark. I have a four hour layover in Newark and then I will be on my way home. I’ll probably write more during this layover. Now that I think about it, the layover and flight time is longer than if I landed at Newark and drove home. Oh well.
The flight attendant’s name is Courtney and she is quite pleasant. Initial impressions is that she enjoys her job. She is another one with “fierce” knee high boots. The flight attendant between Dulles and RDU on Friday featured Julie with her knee high boots. I’m not sure why I’m noticing these boots since I have zero interest in women’s footwear, but looking fierce is looking fierce regardless of sex, so there’s that.
The skies are clear for this flight. We don’t seem to be as high up ask would expect, maybe 20-21,000 feet. Oh my gosh how I love flying.
The other passengers are interesting to observe. Since today is a Federal holiday there’s not a lot of business folks traveling, at least from what I’ve seen, but there’s a lot of those that are casually dressed. I am dressed in a sport coat and tie and I am definitely enjoying a better customer service experience and I think it’s because I’m dressed this way. It could be because I have a stronger feeling of self-confidence when I dress this way. Whatever the reason, I am happy that I feel good and that I feel like I’m being treated well.
There is a mom and one of her sons seated across the aisle from me. The young man is well behaved. The mother does things like drop items in the aisle during take-off and eat nutri-grain bars but we can deal with that. The man behind her brought a greased soaked sack of McFat onto the flight that smelled extra pungent for the frivolity of all within a two mile radius of this flight, but we can deal with that with minimal personal irritability.
I’m wondering if this flight would normally pass over Washington, D.C. The reason I’m wondering this is because we’ve done several S banks and for some reason I’m equating this to avoiding flying over the Inauguration celebrations.
It’s time for refreshment! The favorite time of the flight for all. Especially if it helps the passenger behind me wash down his McFat.
Supposedly there was a time when everyone dressed up to go flying. I think that was before the TSA started strip searching people at random though.
I think the “classier” approach to flying died out way back in the 80s with the deregulation of the airline industry and flying basically became akin to cattle cars and/or Greyhound buses with wings. I don’t know why people feel that they can wear pajamas while flying these days, but I did appreciate the noticeably better customer service I received on this last round of flights. It could be that my attire boosted my confidence and I received better service in response.